Facebook Tests a “Dislike” Button

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It seems like Facebook has begun testing some new users Reactions. Among them will apparently be a “Dislike” button too. However, the new button is not going to be where you would expect it to be. According to Facebook, from now on, you will be able to reply to your friends in the Facebook Messenger app by sending an emoji, the same way you are now doing when someone posts something.

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Currently testing the new feature

According to a report, Facebook is currently showing some specific users the new feature. How will the new messenger reactions work? Quite simple actually. You will only need to hover over a message which a friend already sent in the chat box. An emoji button will appear and you will be able to tap on it and chose from a number of reactions. Among those will be a thumbs up one, the new thumbs down one, heart eyes, sad, wow and so on. The specific friend or the other friends (if there are in the group) will then be able to see the emoji underneath the message it characterizes. If you tap the smiley faces, you will be able to see all the reactions and the people they came from.

According to a statement from Facebook, they have always wanted to do this in order to make Messenger more fun and full of life. And everybody knows how some messages can get the wrong interpretation without a verbal inflexion or an emoji. This is the reason why the people at Facebook decided to first test those reactions. Only then, if the group of people who are testing will like them, the reactions are going to become available for absolutely everyone.

The desirable “Dislike” button

The most asked for button from Facebook is the “Dislike” one. However, even when they introduced the reactions in the News Feed, the people at Facebook decided not to create a thumbs down one. Their reason was to not cause even more negativity on their platform. Social media is already the reason for many events, some of them tragic. So, a dislike button would not help with this problem at all. However, the situation is different for Messenger. According to the creators, this new thumbs down reaction button must be seen as more of a “no” or “I do not agree”.

The social media platform launched the News Feed reaction almost a year ago. People were disappointed when they did not include the “Dislike” one but in time, they became extremely successful. “Love” is reportedly the most used reaction of them all, apart from the classic “Like”. An interesting thing to note is that Facebook is now taking more into consideration the reactions when establishing which posts should appear more often or more rarely. So, the popularity of some pictures or videos or written posts is often drawn from those reactions. Facebook probably wants to make their Messenger even more popular than it already is. So, they are trying out new things which will draw more people to it. Until now, this strategy seems to work just fine.